d to was too real, too full of those
things which had driven her poor aunt to her present unyielding
attitude toward the world to be the ravings of an insane mind. And
suddenly panic gripped her, that panic which, in a moment of weakness,
so easily tends toward self-destruction.

"Is--is there no hope, auntie?" she asked helplessly.

Mercy Lascelles looked up from the crystal. She eyed her niece
steadily, as though to read all there was hidden behind the desperate
blue eyes.

Slowly she shook her head.

Again came that spasm of panic, and Joan seemed to hurl her whole
young strength into denial.

"But there is. There must be," she cried, with a fierceness that held
the other in something like astonishment. "There must be," she
reiterated desperately. "No God could be so cruel--so--so wicked.
What have I done to deserve this? The injustice is demoniacal. Far
better go and throw myself before a passing train than live to carry
such a pestilence with me wherever I go through life. If you can read
these things--read on. Read on and tell me, for I swear that I will
not live with this curse forever tied about my neck."

"You will live--you must live. It is written here." Mercy pointed at
the crystal. Then she laughed her cold, mirthless laugh. "There was
one power that served me, that helped me to save my reason through all
those early days. God knows how it may help you--for I can't see. I
loved your father with a passion nothing, no disaster could destroy. I
loved him so that I could crush every other feeling down, subservient
to my passion. Go you, child, and find such a love. Go you and find a
love so strong that no disaster can kill it. And maybe life may still
have some compensations for you, maybe it will lift the curse from
your suffering shoulders. It--it is the only thing in the world that
is stronger than disaster. It is the only thing in the world that is
stronger than--death."

Joan had no answer. She stared straight ahead of her, focusing some
trifling detail of the pattern on the wall paper. Her face was
stony--stony as the face of the woman who was watching her. The
moments passed rapidly. A minute passed, and neither spoke.

Then at last the girl abruptly rose from her seat. Almost mechanically
she moved over to a mirror, and, removing her hat, deftly patted her
beautiful hair till it assumed its wonted appearance. And quite
suddenly she turned about.

"I have nearly fifty thousand dollars, auntie